The Beautiful Life: The Rodarte Show

Sep 15, 2009

Tuesday September 15th at 12:45pm: Leaving the Rodarte show at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea with a Van Leeuwen artisan ice cream. Aveda's sponsoring the ice cream truck, but you have to make a $1 donation that benefits the National Resources Defense Council—well worth it for pistachio-flavored lunch. Definitely the most dramatic show of the week, with smoke machines that filled the black sand-covered runway with an eerie fog. To prevent photographers from snapping shots of the hair and makeup (matted ponytails mixed with black wool, pale faces, black lip pencil, beet red lipstick, and Maori-inspired fake arm tattoos) before the show, the models were swaddled in black sheets (hooding their heads) and rushed from the backstage area to the gallery entrance. Seems a little extreme. And the models smoking with the sheets wrapped around their heads were definitely a fire hazard! —Ning Chao

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7:00pm Back at the tents for Narciso Rodriguez. Dick Page is talking about makeup in reverse. To play up the contours of the face, he used eye makeup remover first to create a soft sheen on the skin, especially around the brow bones. Eugene is doing hair for Wella but it's so busy he agrees to a "two second interview." Eek! Overall look for hair? "Crimped bicycle helmet." —Lizzie Dunlap

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